Kim Barnes

A poet's account of her journey toward adulthood follows her coming of age near the isolated logging camps of northern Idaho

Coming of Age in Unknown Country

In the Wilderness

"A young woman from the American South finds herself in the strange world of the Middle East after she marries an oil driller"--

A Novel

In the Kingdom of Men

Susan Orlean

Mark Vonnegut

Paul Lisicky

M. J. Fievre

M. Evelina Galang

Jan Becker

Lori Jakiela

Dan Wakefield

Tabitha Blankenbiller

Elizabeth Dalton

Rebecca Cook

Elmaz Abinader

Christine Butterworth-McDermott

Andrea Askowitz

Lisbeth Davidow

Dinty Moore

Russell Reece

Sliver of Stone magazine presents its first volume of collected nonfiction. From the mouth of a Seattle whale to a Nordstrom's swimsuit department, from an Idaho fundamentalist church to a fathomless Florida lake, the fifteen stories in ALL THAT GLITTERS recount lives and identities unsettled by impending doom. Also included are four remarkable interviews with award-winning nonfiction writers, including Susan Orlean, author of The Orchid Thief and Rin Tin Tin."Fresh, fierce, and enlightening, All That Glitters is a find. The talented nonfiction writers in this collection invite us along on the complicated, sometimes scary, but irresistible pursuit of truth." (Lynne Barrett, author of Magpies and The Secret Names of Women)

A Sliver of Stone Nonfiction Anthology

All That Glitters

A powerful novel of young love and rural isolation from the acclaimed author of In the Wilderness. Thomas Deracotte is just out of medical school, and his pregnant wife, Helen, have their whole future mapped out for them in upper-crust Connecticut. But they are dreamers, and they set out to create their own farm in rural Idaho instead. The fields are in ruins when they arrive, so they hire a farmhand named Manny to help rebuild. But the sudden, frightening birth of their daughter, Elise, tests the young couple, and Manny is called upon to mend this fractured family. An extraordinary story of hope and idealism, A Country Called Home is a testament to the power of family—the family we are born to and the family we create.

A Country Called Home

A poet's account of her journey toward adulthood follows her coming of age near the isolated logging camps of northern Idaho and considers how geography and faith served to shape her sense of identity. 30,000 first printing. $25,000 ad/promo. Tour.

Here is the first thing you need to know about me: I’m a barefoot girl from red-dirt Oklahoma, and all the marble floors in the world will never change that. Here is the second thing: that young woman they pulled from the Arabian shore, her hair tangled with mangrove—my husband didn’t kill her, not the way they say he did. 1967. Gin Mitchell knows a better life awaits her when she marries hometown hero Mason McPhee. Raised in a two-room shack by her Oklahoma grandfather, a strict Methodist minister, Gin never believed that someone like Mason, a handsome college boy, the pride of Shawnee, would look her way. And nothing can prepare her for the world she and Mason step into when he takes a job with the Arabian American Oil company in Saudi Arabia. In the gated compound of Abqaiq, Gin and Mason are given a home with marble floors, a houseboy to cook their meals, and a gardener to tend the sandy patch out back. Even among the veiled women and strict laws of shariah, Gin’s life has become the stuff of fairy tales. She buys her first swimsuit, she pierces her ears, and Mason gives her a glittering diamond ring. But when a young Bedouin woman is found dead, washed up on the shores of the Persian Gulf, Gin’s world closes in around her, and the one person she trusts is nowhere to be found. Set against the gorgeously etched landscape of a country on the cusp of enormous change, In the Kingdom of Men abounds with sandstorms and locust swarms, shrimp peddlers, pearl divers, and Bedouin caravans—a luminous portrait of life in the desert. Award-winning author Kim Barnes weaves a mesmerizing, richly imagined tale of Americans out of their depth in Saudi Arabia, a marriage in peril, and one woman’s quest for the truth, no matter what it might cost her.

Raised by a strict Methodist minister in a two-room shack, Gin McPhee never imagined she'd have a husband she loved and a houseboy making her breakfast in Saudi Arabia. But just as she tires of cocktails and glamour, the dead body of a young woman is discovered and she begins to ask dangerous questions.

Poet Kim Barnes grew up in northern Idaho, in the isolated camps where her father worked as a logger and her mother made a modest but comfortable home for her husband and two children. Their lives were short on material wealth, but long on the riches of family and friendship, and the great sheltering power of the wilderness. But in the mid-1960's, as automation and a declining economy drove more and more loggers out of the wilderness and into despair, Kim's father dug in and determined to stay. It was then the family turned fervently toward Pentecostalism. It was then things changed. In the Wilderness is the poet's own account of a journey toward adulthood against an interior landscape every bit as awesome, as beautiful, and as fraught with hidden peril as the great forest itself. It is a story of how both faith and geography can shape the heart and soul, and of the uncharted territory we all must enter to face our demons. Above all, it is the clear-eyed and moving account of a young woman's coming of terms with her family, her homeland, her spirituality, and herself. In presenting Kim Barnes the 1995 PENJerard Fund Award for a work-in-progress by an emerging female writer, the panel of judges wrote that "In the Wilderness is far more than a personal memoir," adding that it stands "almost as a cautionary example of the power of good prose to distinguish whatever it touches." Indeed, In the Wilderness is an extraordinary work, courageous, candid, and exquisitely written.

Mary Clearman Blew

This striking array of stories, essays, and poems reflects women’s experiences in the American West. Though the tales they tell reflect a variety of viewpoints, these writers share the struggle against the overwhelming isolation brought on by gender and the physical environment. Contributors include:Christina Adam, Gretel Ehrlich, Anita Endrezze, Tess Gallagher, Molly Gloss, Pam Houston, Teresa Jordan, Cyra McFadden, Deirdre McNamer, Melanie Rae Thon, Marilynne Robinson, Annick Smith, Terry Tempest Williams, and Claire Davis

Kim Barnes

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